Gordon Lecture
Valerie Gordon Human Rights Lecture

The annual Valerie Gordon Human Rights Lecture celebrates the memory of the late Valerie Gordon ’93, a fierce advocate for human rights in the US and internationally. The lecture brings outstanding lawyers, judges, scholars and advocates who work to advance human rights to deliver a keynote address at the law school. In conjunction with the lecture, the law school’s chapter of the Black Law Students Association sponsors a human rights essay contest for first year law students. The author of the winning essay is given “The Spirit of Valerie Gordon” award, presented at the lecture each spring.

Valerie Gordon Human Rights Lecturers

Bryan Stevenson is a public-interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. He's the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an Alabama-based group that has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent prisoners on death row, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.

EJI recently won an historic ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court holding that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are unconstitutional. Mr. Stevenson’s work fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system has won him numerous awards. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government, and has been awarded 14 honorary doctorate degrees. Bryan is the author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. (view photos)

Morten Kjaerum, Director, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, SwedenApril 13, 2016: "Racism and Inclusion: Where is Europe Headed?"
Morten Kjaerum is director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Sweden. Morten KjaerumPreviously, he was the first director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in Vienna from 2008 to 2015. He is also currently chair of the board of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).

Mr. Kjaerum was the founding drector of the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), where he served from 1991 until 2008, and developed it from a small organisation to a large internationally recognized institution. He started his career in the non-governmental sector at the Danish Refugee Council.

Mr. Kjaerum was the chairperson of the Network of Directors of EU Agencies in 2014-2015. He was a member (2002-2008) of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and its follow-up rapporteur from 2006 until 2008. He was a member of the EU network of independent experts responsible for monitoring compliance with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (2002-2006). In 2004, he was elected chair of the International Coordinating Committee for National Human Rights Institutions. (view photos)

2015

Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU and Director of its Human Rights Program
March 18, 2015: "Guantánamo and the Legacy of Torture"
Jameel Jaffer, (@JameelJaffer) is deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and director of its Center for Democracy, which houses the organization's work on human rights, national security, free speech, privacy, and technology. Jaffer has for years been at the center of the national and international debate around the detainment center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In this 22nd Valerie Gordon Memorial Lecture, Jaffer discussed the ways in which the treatment of Guantánamo prisoners is contributing to a legacy that will influence the global image of the US for decades to come. "The 2015 lecture took place in the context of the installation, at Northeastern University, of a traveling multimedia exhibition hosted by the Guantánamo Public Memory Project. " The exhibit was entitled, "Confronting Guántanamo: A Contested Place, A Controversial Past, A Questionable Future.Photo credit: Alice Ristroph

The Honorable Albert Louis Sachs, Constitutional Court of South Africa

1997

Franic Mading Deng, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

1996

The Honorable Nathaniel Jones, US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

1995

The Honorable Dessima Williams, UN Ambassador, Grenada

1994

Randall Robinson, Executive Director, TransAfrica

BLSA Human Rights Essay Contest

Each year, in conjunction with the Valerie Gordon Lecture, the law school's chapter of the Black Law Students Association sponsors a human rights essay contest for first-year law students. The essay topic is announced annually by BLSA, and "The Spirit of Valerie Gordon Award" is presented at the Gordon Lecture each spring.